PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
Читать онлайн книгу.
point the related and correlated things, persons, and circumstances. This is one of the reasons why after you “get things going” in any particular line of interest and desire, things tend to “come easier” to and for you as time passes. In such cases, that which required enormous effort in the earlier stages seems to move almost automatically in the later ones. These are matters of common and almost universal experience with those who have been actively engaged in any particular line of work in which strong interest and insistent desire have been aroused and maintained.
You must not, however, hastily jump to the conclusion that all forms of Mental Attraction are Desire Attraction. The general Mental Attitude has its corresponding attractive power; the mental states of Confident Expectation—of Hope and Fear, respectively—also have their attributes of attractive influence. But the attractive power and influence of Desire is far more fundamental than are the other forms and phases of Mental Attraction, and, in a way, may be said to be the basic form. These matters are mentioned here solely for the purpose of preventing misunderstanding and confusion.
So, you see, Desire Power tends not only to develop and evolve within you the qualities and powers necessary to enable you to manifest and express yourself along the lines of the desires persistently held by you; it also tends to attract to you, and you to them, the things, persons, circumstances and conditions related to or correlated with the subject of such desires. In other words, Desire Power employs every means at its disposal in order to express and manifest itself more fully, and (through you) to attain its object and end—its greatest possible degree of satisfaction and realization. When you have thoroughly aroused Desire Power within you, and have created for it a strong, positive focal centre of influence, you have set into operation powerful forces of Nature, operating along subconscious and invisible lines of activity. In this connection, remember the adage: “You may have anything you want—if you only want it hard enough.”
The attractive force of Desire Power operates in many different ways. In addition to the “drawing power” operating along the lines of “something like telepathy” of which we have spoken, it also operates in other ways on the subconscious planes of the mind in order to influence, guide and direct the person to the other persons, things, conditions, and circumstances related or correlated to or with the particular desire which is being persistently and insistently held by that person. Under its influence, the subconscious mentality raises to the levels of consciousness new ideas, thoughts, plans, which if applied will tend to “lead” the person in the direction of the things which will serve to aid him in the realization of those desires which he is insistently harboring.
In this way, the person is led to the related things, just as in the other ways the things are led to him. Desire Power pushes, as truly as it pulls—it urges you forward as truly as it attracts things to you. In some cases the process is entirely subconscious, and the person is amazed when he finds “by chance” (!) that he has “stumbled upon” helpful things in places in which he had least expected to find them, and in places to which he had apparently been led by Chance. But there is no Chance about it; persons are undoubtedly “led to” helpful things and conditions, but by Desire Power operating along the lines of the subconscious mentality, and not by Chance.
Many successful men could tell (if they would) how often in their respective careers, at critical times, the most peculiar happenings have been experienced by them, seemingly “by chance” or “by accident,” which served as the means of transforming defeat into victory. In this way they acquired “by chance” some important bit of information serving to supply the missing link in their mental chain, or else giving them a clue to that which had previously escaped their thought. Or, perhaps, they unexpectedly “ran into” the person who afterward turned out to be the one particular person who alone could have helped them in certain ways. Or, again, they have picked up at random the particular newspaper, magazine, or book which either gave them the required information, or else mentioned some other book or thing which filled the need.
These things happen so often, and in such a striking way, that many men of active experience have learned to expect them, to rely upon them, and to act upon them. Not knowing the true underlying causes of the happenings, they usually refrain from mentioning their experiences to their friends for fear of being regarded as superstitious or credulous; but if the subject happens to be introduced in confidential conversation between men of this kind, it will be found that the instances cited are numerous, and are so strikingly similar in general nature that the careful thinker is forced to the conclusion that there is some fundamental principle involved in the events, and that there is a logical sequence of cause and effect indicated.
Not knowing the true cause of these happenings, men are prone to ascribe them to “luck,” fate, destiny, chance, or else to think of them simply as “one of those things beyond explanation.” Some men who have become familiar with them have learned to recognize them readily when they experience them, by reason of a “feeling” that “here is another of those things.” They learn to distinguish between a mere general and vague notion, and a “sure enough hunch.” Sometimes, men think that these things are the result of the aid of a kindly Providence operating in their behalf; others feel that they have helpers “on the other side”; still others feel that there is “something almost uncanny” about the whole thing; but so long as it is perceived to operate in their behalf all are willing to take advantage of the aid of the Unknown Power.
Of course, the subconscious mentality of the individual is the “helper,” or “directing genius” in such cases, and the happenings are merely phases of the general phenomena of the Subconscious. But, nevertheless, Desire Power is the animating principle involved. The subconscious mentality, like the conscious mentality, is energized and aroused into activity by the urge of Desire Power. Desire Power employs every possible form of energy, activity and motivepower at its command; and also presses into service all kinds of machinery and instruments, mental and physical. The Fire of Desire kindles every faculty of the mind, on conscious and subconscious planes, and sets them all into active work on its behalf. Without Desire Power in some form or phase, none of these faculties would manifest activity; where activity is manifested by them, there is always implied the presence and urge of Desire Power.
Sometimes Desire Power will operate in strangely indirect ways in order to accomplish its results. By means of the “under the surface” perception of the subconscious faculties, Desire Power seemingly perceives that “the longest way ’round is the quickest way home,” and it proceeds to cause the individual to pursue that “longest way ’round” in order to attain his desire in the shortest possible time. In such cases it often acts so as to upset and overturn the plans which one has carefully mapped out; the result makes it seem to one that failure and defeat, instead of victory and success, have come to him. It will sometimes tear the person away from his present comparatively satisfactory environment and conditions, and then lead him over rock roads and hard trails; and finally, when he has almost despaired of attaining success, he finds it literally thrust upon him.
Such instances are not invariable, of course, but they occur sufficiently often and with such characteristically marked features that they must be recognized. It often happens that, as one who has experienced it has said, “It seems as if one were grabbed by the back of his neck, lifted out of his set environment and occupation, dragged roughly over a painful road, and then thrust forcibly but kindly upon the throne of success, or at least into the throneroom with the throne in plain sight before him.”
But, at the last, those who have experienced these strenuous activities of Desire Power operating through the subconscious nature and in many other ways are found to agree universally in the statement, “The end justified the means; the thing is worth the price paid for it.” It requires philosophy and faith to sustain one when he is undergoing experiences of this kind, but the knowledge of the law and principle in operation will of course greatly aid him. The right spirit to maintain in such cases is that expressed in the phrase of the A. E. F. in France, “It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.”
Desire Power employs freely the subconscious faculties in its work of Realization through Attraction. It employs these in man just as it employs them in the case of the homing pigeon, the migrating birds, the bee far from its hive—it supplies the “homing instinct” to the man seeking